Today we revisit the topic of creating more intimacy in your marriage. This is actually a replay of episode 108. We don’t normally do replays but Verlynda is in the hospital with pneumonia today. I am glad to say that she is recovering, but, boy does that pneumonia ever hit hard. So, please keep her in your thoughts and enjoy this show from a couple years ago.

If you really want to build more intimacy in your marriage – and who wouldn’t??? – here are four ways to do that. Take the time to hear, and digest this.

1st Way to Build Intimacy: Intimacy is Built Through Disclosure and Responsiveness

Given that intimacy itself is purely emotional, let’s put a nice, sterile definition on it…

Intimacy is what happens through interactions of self-disclosure and partner responsiveness to disclosure. This process is believed to develop feelings of closeness between the speaker and the listener.[i]

Gotta love it!

Perhaps the definition that Caleb uses will be easier to understand. He says that intimacy is really like “Into Me See”. When I let you see into me and you respond appropriately, and when that is reciprocated, you get intimacy – That’s what deepens love.

So, the first way that you can increase the level of intimacy in your relationship is through disclosure and responsiveness, or doing the “into me see” thing.

Husbands, Caleb has some words of wisdom for you. When you let your wife see your emotions, that creates far more intimacy than when you let your wife just see facts and information about you.[ii]

It’s cute and fun and worthwhile for you to share that you got a bike for your sixth birthday. However, when you tell her how you felt after you fell off your new bike and your dad got all mad at you for scratching it, that will create greater intimacy than just telling her you got a bike.

Again, when you complain about the guys at work, that’s fine. You need to share. When you tell her you’re afraid of losing your job though, and that you’re carrying this fear around like a dark cloud in your heart, that will create intimacy far deeper than the facts regarding your work situation.

Wives, the same deal goes for you. You need to be connecting emotionally with your husband. Intimacy is built up when I let you see into my emotional world. That’s very vulnerable.

The flip side of this is that when your spouse shares an intimate detail with you: you have to respond. You must, must, MUST acknowledge it. Even if all you can think of is “Wow, I never knew that”, then just say, “Wow, I never knew that”; or “Thank you for sharing that with me – that’s really special.”

Something, please! It’s not just enough to share: responsiveness needs to happen too.

2nd Way To Build Intimacy: Intimacy is Built Through Knowledge and Understanding

There is a great study from 1998 which is worth mentioning, even though a lot of couples have already figured this out.

First, couples who are better at predicting each other reported greater feelings of marital intimacy.[iii] That’s just saying that couples feel more intimate if they know each other well.

Become a student of your spouse! Intimacy in marriage comes from knowing and understanding each other.

There is a positive cycle that happens here. When you accurately understand and know a person, that will lead to greater trust. You trust the people you know best (assuming that the knowledge is positive…).

When you have that greater degree of trust, you feel safe to be more expressive of your inner world of emotions and thoughts. In other words, you become more vulnerable and you’re more willing to self-disclose. Then what? That leads to more knowledge and understanding between the two of you, and more predictability and then there is more trust.

And what happens when there is more trust? Intimacy!

It’s a brilliant positive cycle. This is why marriage should keep getting better and better.

So, you can build intimacy by increasing your knowledge an...